Title: Harry Potter and the Orb of Souls
Author: SerafinaMoon
Date: May 2-26, 2005
Summary: Voldemort has discovered a new weapon—the Orb of Souls. With it, he has discovered a way to purge the world—with their only savior.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, any of its characters, or themes. I will not profit from this story except receiving enjoyment of your questions, comments, and input on this work.
Claimer: I do, however, own this story and its plot and any Original Characters that I may use during the duration of the story making process.
A/N- Well, I just got back from camp and had a wonderful time! Perfect timing for updating too, huh?
Chapter 11: Gringotts
A veil of black velvet hung over Hogwarts school on the Saturday morning after Halloween, and neither it nor the oppressive silence that dominated the abandoned corridors were disturbed when a lone figure walked cautiously, but confidently, toward the Owlerly.
Naito slunk through the shadows, careful not to make a sound to reveal himself despite the invisibility spell that prevented him from being seen, but not sensed.
Glancing around himself every few steps to make sure he had not been noticed or disturbed anything with his presence, Naito reached the tall tower that housed all the school's and student's owls.
Using a spell to check the time, Naito nodded to himself, knowing he was right on time so far as it was a little after two thirty in the morning.
Without a single glance back at what he was leaving, Naito transformed into a peregrine falcon, just changing his eyes slightly so that he could see in the dark, and, jumping up onto the windowsill, swooped out into the midnight black sky.
After a brief tingling inspired by the castle wards, Naito caught a thermal and rode it to its peak, before folding his wings back and plummeting towards the ground in a dive as the fastest animal alive.
Naito loved all of his bird forms, but the peregrine falcon and the phoenix were definitely his favorites. The falcon was able to reach speeds of two hundred miles per hour in a dive, and Naito loved the thrill of the rushing speed, the feel of air underneath his wings, and the freedom of the flight.
Up here in the sky, Naito could be and do whatever he wanted and there was no one to tell him otherwise.
Quickly, before he got too caught up in the thrill of being a bird, Naito got back on task and morphed into his phoenix form, following the train tracks from Hogsmeade for a little ways, just relishing being in the magical form, before the flames of phoenix apparition transported him to Diagon Alley where the other Death Eaters were waiting on the corner of Diagon and Knockturn Alley.
Naito quickly transformed and fell into place behind Bellatrix Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy, the leaders of their nighttime excursion.
"About time you showed up," muttered an irate Bella, pointing an accusing wand in his face.
"Yeah, well it took a bit of time sneaking out of Hogwarts without anyone noticing. I almost had a run in with Filch and had to hide in a closet and wait until he left," Naito lied easily.
"That lousy Squib will be one of the first to go when we finally take Hogwarts. Don't worry, Naito, I'll personally make sure you get the chance to show him just what you think of him."
"Now, here's what we're going to do," Lucius started.
"Bella and her group are going to create a diversion while we sneak down to find vault 412. We'll take care of the wards surrounding the vault and hold them open for you to sneak in and get whatever's in there."
Naito audibly snorted and sneered, "That's your brilliant plan? Draw everyone to the bank before going down to get it?"
Malfoy's eyes narrowed dangerously in Naito's direction.
"Are you trying to undermine us again, boy? Haven't you learned your lesson from the last time?"
"I'm not trying to undermine your authority. I'm trying to make the Dark Lord's plan succeed so that you and I don't have to be punished for failure by ensuring we get the job done with as little casualties to our side as possible."
"And theirs as well, might I add."
"Not really. Look, the Dark Lord sent Avery and Nott out to torture Muggles for a reason...to serve as a distraction so that we can sneak in undetected. If you have Bella's group create another diversion that's only going to draw the Aurors and Order members to where we are, which is exactly the opposite of what we want right now.
"Nott and Avery are the diversion. We need to sneak down there without anyone knowing, but leave Bella's group as backup in case something goes wrong and we need a way out."
Naito stared at the others as they all stood over him, eyes full of contempt and scorn of his position.
"Listen here, boy-"
"Look, do you want this to work out or not? We don't have much time and the Dark Lord will be extremely displeased with you if your plan fails."
Naito almost hit himself over the head after that. Of course Malfoy would gladly accept his plan now, but if something went wrong it would now be his fault instead of the blonde aristocrat.
Malfoy looked annoyed at being interrupted, but Naito could detect the slight smirk that graced his face as the implications of what Naito said clicked within his mind.
"Very well then. We'll do things your way, but remember this, boy, anything that goes wrong with this because of you is on your own head."
Naito was very tempted to roll his eyes, but simply twisted his features so that he would not resemble himself.
"Uh uh, none of that. We want to make sure you're loyal; we can't exactly do that if we can't tell if you are one of us or an Auror, now can we? Keep your own appearance for this."
With a forceful sigh, Naito changed back and asked impatiently, "Are you ready to go then!"
Bella and Lucius smirked at Naito's annoyance and he forced himself to calm down and not let his emotions get the better of him. Putting his stoic mask in place on his face, Naito lifted an elegant eyebrow at the pair of smirking Death Eaters before saying, "Well?"
They kept right on smirking and Bella contributed in her mock sweet voice, "Why don't you go first and make sure there is nothing unpleasant waiting for us?"
That time Naito did roll his eyes and stalked forward, not missing one of the new recruits say, "No wonder the Dark Lord's always disappointed with your failures. You guys always seem to get beaten by kids."
Naito smirked as Malfoy roughly pushed the guy aside, rudely telling him to keep his smart comments to himself.
Naito thought of quipping Malfoy, to say the remark was a wise observation by telling him the comment was "smart," but held back as he did not want to be in any more trouble than he already was.
Drawing himself back to the task at hand, Naito maneuvered himself so that he was standing before the great bronze doors leading into the wizard bank.
After probing the wards surrounding the building, Naito wondered how to best go about entering. Calling up his tutoring with Voldemort, Naito uttered a long string of Latin and felt the wards shift into a liquid-like quality that would allow them to enter and exit without disturbing the alarms.
Naito carefully opened the doors, making sure they would not make noise and entered, followed by the other Death Eaters to the next set of silver doors.
Naito read the inscription posted on the doors and scoffed although something important vaguely pulled at his thoughts; it was as if there was something he had forgotten to do and needed to see to it.
Shaking his head to clear it, the Slytherin boy easily pushed the next set of doors open with magic and strode inside, the others following rapidly with Malfoy deftly allocating orders.
"Come on, boy, you're with me," the blonde growled at him, grabbing him by the arm and almost dragging him along with group Alpha across the foyer and down to the tunnels.
Lifting his wand into the air, Malfoy summoned enough carts to comfortably seat all of team Alpha. Pulling Naito into one with him, Malfoy waited just until everyone was in a cart (sitting or not) and started off, the rapid pace causing some of their number to vomit out the side of their seats.
Naito rolled his eyes at all of them; to tell the truth, he was enjoying himself. The wind that was rushing through his hair reminded him of flying. Unconsciously, he must have been leaning forward eagerly, because that was the only explanation Naito could find for Malfoy's sharp tug on the back of his robes.
The further down they went, the more forbidding the air began to feel around them and Naito was overwhelmed by the foreboding feeling that was coming over him.
The others were beginning to show signs of impatience and Naito wondered why that was as it had only seemed like a few seconds to him, but when he checked his watch to see, it told him they had broken into Gringotts twenty minutes prior. Naito's eyes widened in surprise, no wonder everyone was so fidgety.
It was only a few minutes after that when all the carts came to a grinding, screeching halt that almost threw Naito overboard onto the floating tracks. The only thing that it threw him into, however, was Malfoy Senior, who glared at Naito before roughly clasping Naito's arm in a vice-like grip and tearing him from the cart with him.
They approached the platform on shaky, unsteady legs, which Malfoy paid no regard to as he thrust Naito up to the door, so that his nose almost impacted with the heavy steel. Catching himself with his hands, Naito quietly huffed in annoyance and set about quietly collapsing the wards on the vault.
It took only a few moments, but after the long wait during the cart ride, several of the Death Eaters were anxious and began to whisper irate comments, such as: "Hurry up!" "We don't have all day you know!" and "Whenever you're ready!"
For the most part, Naito ignored them and concentrated on the wards.
When he finally broke through and the door grated open, one of the more impatient Death Eaters stormed past Naito into the room, knocking him sideways towards the edge of the platform as everyone else also made their way into the vault.
Well, at least if I fall, I can transform into a bird, was all Naito had time to think of before two hands came down on his shoulders and steered him in the direction they wanted for the third time.
When Naito entered the room, he saw that it was cluttered with all sorts of different things. Not only was money stored in the vault, but since it was also someone's inheritance, there was furniture, weapons, paintings, family heirlooms...anything that you would find in a house had found its way into the large room.
Everyone had their wands out before them lit as they walked around looking for any object that resembled the Orb of Souls.
"Help them search, boy!" came Malfoy's harsh command before he too began looking around for the globe.
They all looked around for ten minutes before someone said, "I don't think it's here, sir."
Malfoy growled in his throat and was about to offer up a retort when a loud, piercing wail met their ears.
Immediately, Malfoy turned to Naito, but he rose up his hands in surrender and cried out, "It wasn't me! I made sure all the wards were down in here. If it were one of them, we'd have encountered them at the door. It must have been team Beta that tripped one of the alarms!"
"I'm going to kill Bellatrix when I get my hands on her! Everyone, let's get out of here, now!"
They all scrambled for the exit, haphazardly jumping into carts and taking off the moment they were loaded. Naito and some of the new recruits, including the one that had made the sarcastic comment to Malfoy, were the last ones out, while Malfoy and all of the Senior Death Eaters were the first ones to leave.
"Here, kid, put this on. You're going to need it," said one of the men in his cart as he handed Naito a white mask. Naito donned the mask and drew his hood up over his head to further shield his face.
Just then the cart jumped and rocked on the tracks as an explosion sounded ahead of them. Naito looked to see what was happening and noticed streams of light being hurled in the direction of the senior Death Eaters. Malfoy and the others were exchanging curses with shadowy figures riding large...fire-breathing creatures?
"Oh! CRAP!" Naito yelled, "I never thought they actually HAD dragons here!"
"Yeah, well, I say that seeing is believing, kid! I see it so you better believe it!"
"I'm going to have to, because not believing is only going to get me killed!"
No one replied to that since they were too busy concentrating on the goblins (Naito figured had to be the shadowy figures) that had come up behind them, and had brought their own fanged creatures.
What should I do? I can't let that many people see me transform...Dumbledore thinks my form is ferret, if I try to stop the dragons by becoming one, he might just figure out my secret!
Naito's thoughts were cut off as a blast of fire spewed from one of the dragon's mouths. He quickly put up a freezing spell, dodged out of the way, and rolled to the side all in a split second.
Before he even had time to think about what he was doing, Naito was throwing curses left and right, dodging dragon's fire and goblin magic, which was pouring in on the Death Eaters from every direction.
Thank goodness Dumbledore hasn't had time yet to send in the Order!
"Reducto! Expelliarmus! Stupefy! Protego!"
Streams of different colored light from spells poured from Naito's wand, almost all of them reaching their targets. The goblins began to back up, waiting for reinforcements to help them deal with the intruders.
Naito and all the other Death Eaters had ducked into their carts, taking what little cover they could from them and managing to make it a few paces farther before the goblin's backup came.
"So what's the plan?" all the new recruits turned to Naito and asked, panic plastered to the window of their souls through the slits of white death head masks.
Naito sighed, took a deep breath, and began to lay out a very sketchy idea when they were all knocked into the side of the cart with a force that knocked the wind out of them.
They heard an ominous cracking sound as their entire cart tipped...until it fell over completely.
Apparently, reinforcements had arrived while they were deliberating what to do and one of the Death Eaters from another cart had shot off a powerful curse at one of the dragons, causing it to crash into Naito's group and send them cart and all over the side of the tracks.
Darkness enveloped them all around as the bank's defenses were implemented. Whenever someone tried to break into Gringott's that was not riding on a cart on the tracks, they would not be able to see anything. There were also Anit-Apparation wards over everything to prevent someone just appearing at a vault they wanted to break into so Naito knew that Disapparating would be no help to any of them.
Think, Koori! You managed to get yourself into this mess, now how do you get yourself out? THINK!
Naito's thoughts sifted through all the possibilities, acknowledging and dismissing them each in turn...
I can't Disapparate because of the wards; I can't transform into a dragon because no one can know that I'm an Animagus that doesn't already know...actually, I can't transform at all because of that!
What can I do then?
How about an easy first year spell? The voice in the back of his mind supplied...Wingardium Leviosa?
But it's not powerful enough and it will only lift one person!
So tweak it!
Well, Voldemort did teach me some advanced magics...and a course in Latin...perhaps I can come up with something.
Concentrating with all his mind, Naito summoned power that he had kept hidden deep within himself while on his mission and mumbled an incantation that sounded like: "Wingardium Leviosa Maximus…."
Immediately everyone in the group began descending slower and slower until they were hovering in midair...Naito gave the spell more direction and soon they were all moving in the opposite direction.
He almost lost control once and was forced to focus his power and pay attention or he would have had them all skyrocketing into the ceiling and turning into a dark gelatin smear.
They soon came back up to the first level where Death Eaters and Aurors were battling each other; the contents of the goblins' desks that lined the walls were strewn all over the floor, making it difficult for them to dodge in some cases.
The only word to describe the melee was chaos.
Naito looked over at his group sardonically, lifted a single eyebrow, and said, "Well, what are we waiting for? An invitation?"
That statement put everyone into motion; all the new recruits that Naito had with him charged into a group of Aurors that had been rounded up and began firing spells.
Naito rolled his eyes; they were no better than a bunch of Gryffindor first years, rushing off into danger without first assessing the situation.
Keeping his eyes open and watchful, Naito slunk over to the edge of the room and kept his back pressed up against the wall so he would not have to watch behind him and started forward around the desks.
When he got close enough, Naito smirked, noticing that some inundated Aurors had taken cover behind the desks and were shooting at Death Eaters over the countertops.
Picking out the nearest Auror, Naito shot off a Stunner and watched the man fall to the ground with a soft, "Whumph." The others all turned to look at their fallen comrade and Naito was able to disarm and dispatch two more before they began firing spells back at him.
There were three left and since there was no longer any reason to duck behind the desks, they stood up to face him.
Naito smirked again...it seemed that those new recruits were not the only Gryffindors in the room.
He did not have time to pursue that train of thought as they all fired at him as one. Naito was able to narrowly avoid the red jet of light that came his way, but not the purple one that was aimed at his legs, which pushed him right into a white beam.
The purple hex tied his legs together causing him to fall to the ground while the white beam impacted with his chest with a resounding crack, alerting him to the fact that one or more of his ribs were broken and knocking the breath out of him as the force of the spell knocked him into the wall behind him.
Naito slid to the floor, unable to get his breath back in time to stop the Aurors from disarming him from his wand and tying him up so tightly that he could not move.
They left him lying there and turned back to dueling over the desktops.
If he had not been so preoccupied with trying to regain his bearings from the crushing blow, Naito would have smirked for turning their backs on a conscious opponent.
Naito hissed as his chest caught fire when he breathed and relaxed so that his body would not be under so much strain when he did what he was about to do.
Quickly glancing around to make sure no one was watching Naito's form began to shrink rapidly into his ferret form.
Just in case there is someone watching and they somehow manage to capture me, I can't let them know that I have more than one form.
When he was untangled from the cords that had bound him just seconds before, Naito used wandless magic to call his wand back to him. The Auror holding it had just enough warning to dodge Naito's spell. The other two were not so lucky; they both went down with little resistance.
The last one had a trace of fear in his eyes as he faced Naito one more time.
It definitely has to be the mask; I mean it's not exactly like I'm that imposing of a figure really.
Well, said the voice in the back of his mind again, it could be the fact that he just watched you take out four of his buddies with hardly any trouble.
You call broken ribs hardly any trouble! Besides, I also had the element of surprise both times!
Well, you're going to lose this round then when he surprises you for talking to yourself.
Naito snapped back into reality and saw how right his inner voice was when he barely managed to avoid the spell that was heading right for his face.
Whoa! That was close! Let's make this interesting and end it, shall we?
With pleasure, his inner voice replied.
Using one of the tactics he had used against Ganmou before, Naito constructed a wall between the two of them and tapped himself on the head, becoming invisible.
While the Auror tried to slink around the side of the wall to take shots of him while using it as a shield, Naito swept around the other side and came up behind him, using a quick Stunner to knock him out.
With that done, Naito became visible once again and vanished the wall, making his way along the wall once again, every now and again taking shots at random Aurors that stuck out.
With this tactic and the now overwhelming number of Death Eaters, the Aurors were slowly beginning to lose ground and were being pushed back towards the front doors.
Naito knew it was too good to last and was, therefore, the only one not surprised when more teams of them suddenly came flooding in along with...Order members.
"Holy crap!" Naito muttered, "No wonder Dumbledore hasn't gotten involved before now! He's been waiting until we wore ourselves out and thought we were winning before unleashing everything he had on us! CRAP! CRAP! CRAP!"
Naito began chanting as one last imposing figure entered the building...it was Dumbledore himself.
"RETREAT!" Naito heard Lucius Malfoy call out as the reinforcements began overwhelming them.
Naito scrambled to get away like all of the others as he saw Dumbledore brandishing his wand at all of them while the Aurors he had brought with him revived some of their fallen comrades and surrounded the Death Eaters that were left inside the room.
All the exists were blocked off from what Naito could see and despite the fact that they were all fighting as hard as they could, the Light side seemed to be gaining ground no matter what they did to deter their procession.
CRAP! CRAP! CRAP! This is NOT good!
Naito looked around frantically, assessing the situation and trying to come up with a way to get everyone out safely.
Finally, an idea came to him and Naito looked up. He was still invisible and no one was paying attention to him so he blasted a quite magnificent hole in the ceiling where the skylight was.
Glass rained down all around forcing some to duck and put their hands over their heads to shield themselves, while others merely deflected the glass shards with magic.
"Everybody! Go up!" shouted Lucius across the din and those that were able complied.
Unfortunately for Naito, his spell had given away his position and the Headmaster of Hogwarts himself was striding over to him.
Cripes! There's NO WAY I can fight Dumbledore and win! How do I get out of this one!
How do you always managed to get out of everything you do, mate? Improvise...
Wow, that is SO helpful; why didn't I think of that? Naito thought sarcastically.
Because you're not smart enough to.
If Naito could have glared at himself, he probably would have tried, but he had more important things to worry about at that moment and wisely chose to deal with the more pressing matters.
As Dumbledore stepped up to him, Naito knew the invisibility spell would no longer help him and negated it, quickly shooting a barrage of bludgeoning spells at the Headmaster.
With little apparent effort, the old wizard shrugged them off with a lightning fast shield and hammered Naito with some powerful spells that made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle from the intensity.
Naito was backed into a corner very quickly; with nowhere to go he summoned a stone statue to him and, with a complex incantation, animated it.
With the help of the statue, Naito was actually able to get in some good curses.
"Immobilious! Impedimenta! Stupefy!"
Despite his old age, however, Dumbledore was definitely a formidable opponent. While Naito needed help just defending himself, Dumbledore just stood there, taking everything Naito sent at him even though Naito's reflexes were lightning fast so that his hand did not seem to be, only the steady stream of light that poured from his wand.
How is he doing that!
"With much practice my boy."
Naito gasped and stopped moving, staring at the old wizard in horror. He had let his Occlumency defenses go down while he was fighting, unable to concentrate well enough to hold it and now Dumbledore KNEW WHO HE WAS!
"Wha-...what?"
Despite the gravity of the situation, Dumbledore managed a kind, tired smile in Naito's direction.
"You have much to learn I'm afraid. Not just about dueling either, but about life. Yes, I know who you are, Mr. Koori; in fact, I know much more than that about you as well. I know why you are here, but I also know you don't really want to be here."
He knows who I AM! What's he going to do to me now! If he were the Dark Lord he'd kill me after a long, slow torture, but this is Dumbledore; what does HE do to spies he finds!
"But I-"
"It is alright, my boy, you just need someone to show you the right road to take, the right decision to make. I think deep down you already know what you need to do to turn your life around and are just afraid to take that one uncertain step. Trust me on this, Naito. I can help you, no matter what Voldemort has told you, you know in your heart that what he has taught you is wrong, don't you?"
After a moment's pause in which he seemed to be waiting for a reply, Naito said, "Yes, but-"
"But he has taken care of you? He took you in when no one else would? Trust me, Naito, it was only for selfish reasons that he took you in, he wants to use you, but with us you will be able to live your life freely, unlike the slave in his services that you are now. Will you trust me on this?"
For a few agonizing moments, Naito pictured how his life had been played out so far: tortured for the wrong choice of words, beaten when unable to comply fully with the wishes of his master, and humiliated when he could not accomplish feats that men twice his age had difficulty with. Was that the kind of life he wanted to keep living?
He already knew that he could not let Voldemort win this war, and whether he won or lost, Naito would still be cast out on his own without help.
What Dumbledore was offering was a chance at freedom, the chance to finally have a future. When this was all over, he would be able to live his life and not have to live in fear that his master would no longer need him and dispose of him.
Looking up at the man that could save him from that kind of life, Naito thought, What do I have to lose really? I've already planned to help them defeat the Dark Lord and not let him have the Orb of Souls, what difference does it make if my decision is made known to the side I'm trying to help or not?
With a shaking breath, Naito said carefully, "I will help you, only if Voldemort does not find out what is going on."
"So you would like to be a spy for our side while posing as a spy for his?"
After a slight hesitation, Naito nodded.
"Very well then."
Picking up some debris from the floor, Dumbledore tapped it with his wand, muttered, "Portus," and handed the object to Naito.
"Take this; it will transport you to my office and we shall discuss your situation."
Naito reached out, pulling back at the last minute to look over at all of the other Death Eaters trying to flee the room.
"I need to go back with them though."
"We will discuss it in my office...I will take care of you, Naito; you just need to trust me."
Naito took a deep breath and grasped the portkey and soon he was flying through a whirlwind of sound and color...
(To Be Continued…)
A/N- Wow, that was a really hard chapter to write! I don't know what you think of it, but I tried...Sheesh, I definitely had writer's disease on this one! Well, I hope you all like it!
Coming Up: Naito faces several confrontations with different parties and has to deal with the consequences of his actions in Chapter 12: Aftermath.
Review Responses:
Willow Evenstar: Thank you so much! I'm glad you liked the chapter...I love torturing the characters, because I love to read about them being tortured and all the suspence and action that surrounds stuff like that...yeah, I can read your story...haven't so far cuz I've been away at camp for the past week and I've been really busy, but when I find time, I'll certainly check it out!
Hazel-Beka: Nope...I told you you'd like the torture scene...
Nicky: Actually, Selina is the one that comes up with all the torture ideas...and where she gets them I don't know, nor do I want to know where they come from or how she knows of them. You'll just have to wait and find out...
Professor Moony S. Padfoot: I'm glad you liked it! I do try my best, but when I look back over them I just don't think they turn out well, so I'm glad to hear that you guys appreciate them. Well, you just have to wait and see what happens next, hm?
MagicmanSmokegirl: I have no idea what he reminds you of...I don't even know how I came up with his character...or this story as a matter of fact...these plots just pop into my head most of the time, I just have to develop certain areas. (laughs at Bakura)
I'd like to thank Jin Cheng for beta reading for me! You do an awesome job Jin Cheng! I love you Jin Cheng!